Rot, Riot, and Rebellion

Mr. Jefferson's Struggle to Save the University That Changed America

Rex Bowman and Carlos Santos

Publication Year: 2013

Thomas Jefferson had a radical dream for higher education. Designed to
become the first modern public university, the University of Virginia was envisioned as a liberal
campus with no religious affiliation, with elective courses and student self-government. Nearly
two centuries after the university’s creation, its success now seems preordained—its
founder, after all, was a great American genius. Yet what many don’t know is that
Jefferson’s university almost failed.

In Rot, Riot, and
Rebellion, award-winning journalists Rex Bowman and Carlos Santos offer a dramatic
re-creation of the university’s early struggles. Political enemies, powerful religious
leaders, and fundamentalist Christians fought Jefferson and worked to thwart his dream. Rich
students, many from southern plantations, held a sense of honor and entitlement that compelled them
to resist even minor rules and regulations. They fought professors, townsfolk, and each other with
guns, knives, and fists. In response, professors armed themselves—often with good reason: one
was horsewhipped, others were attacked in their classrooms, and one was twice the target of a bomb.
The university was often broke, and Jefferson’s enemies, crouched and ready to pounce, looked
constantly for reasons to close its doors.

Yet from its tumultuous, early days,
Jefferson’s university—a cauldron of unrest and educational daring—blossomed into
the first real American university. Here, Bowman and Santos bring us into the life of the University
of Virginia at its founding to reveal how this once shaky institution grew into a novel,
American-style university on which myriad other U.S. universities were
modeled.

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

Introduction

The University of Virginia is one of the nation’s top public universities.
Its alumni, known as the Wahoos, would say it’s not one of the best—
it’s the best. The school annually tops collegiate rankings, routinely produces
captains of industry, and turns out top-notch scholars the way
lesser schools crank out football champions. ...

1. “Acts of Great Extravagance”

On March 19, 1839, Professor Gessner Harrison, a mild-mannered
scholar generally liked by the young men who attended his classes at
the University of Virginia, strolled out of his lecture hall in the school’s
stately Rotunda unaware that two students had come looking for him. ...

2. The Ugly Beginning

Among his many talents, Thomas Jefferson knew how to make enemies.
Long before his profile was stamped on the nickel and long before
his bust was carved into a South Dakota mountainside—in short,
long before his image became a symbol of the American democratic impulse—
the sage of Monticello had adversaries, and they were legion. ...

3. Building a University in Virginia

Americans spent much of 1800 embroiled in one of the first—and possibly
still the fiercest—partisan presidential campaigns in the nation’s
history, and at the center of the political storm that threatened to capsize
the ship of state stood Jefferson. The campaign attacks on his character
from politicians and preachers alike deepened the Virginian’s mistrust
of power ...

4. “Vicious Irregularities”

On October 3, 1825, Thomas Jefferson, who had imposed his will on
history so many times before, stood in a crowded room in the still unfinished
Rotunda of his fledgling university to face what he described
as “the most painful event” of his life.1 With the other members of the
Board of Visitors at his side, he looked upon his assembled students ...

5. Tales of Horror

Edgar Allan Poe was one of the youngest students to arrive on the university
precincts in 1826. Like most students he traveled over a series
of rough roads and ragged paths; it took twelve hours to ride the sixty
miles from Richmond to Charlottesville by horseback. ...

6. Scholars amid Scoffaws

Professors, who had anticipated that most of their work would take
place within the confines of a classroom, were now forced to capture
miscreants, judge their guilt, and mete out punishment. With students
refusing to form a court to punish each other, the task of school discipline
fell to the professors and, more particularly, to Faculty Chairman
George Tucker. ...

7. “A Most Villainous Compound”

In the course of a duel, pistols were often shot in the air or combatants
aimed merely to wound each other to satisfy their offended honor. Unlike
most duels, though, the one about to unfold on this mild spring
day promised to end in death. The showdown between students Louis
Wigfall of South Carolina and Charles Hamer of Mississippi ...

Image Plates

8. “Nervous Fever”

In 1827—the school’s third year—professors and school leaders continued
their efforts to control the students. Exasperated and oblivious to
how students would react, the Board of Visitors imposed the “Uniform
Law” that gave students another cause to rebel. ..

9. Riot

In the aftermath of the suffering and death of fellow students and despite
the admonitions of the clergy, students continued their unrepentant
misbehavior. Faculty records from 1829 and the years that followed
contain a long list of schoolboy recklessness. ...

10. Diary of a College Boy

Charles Ellis Jr. of Richmond enrolled at the University of Virginia in
1834, in the heart of its early, wild years, and the diary he left provides
perhaps the only complete snapshot of daily student life—its tedium, its
joys, its dangers, its burdens, and the perennial yearnings of youth for
love and an adventurous life.1 ...

11. “Rebellion Rebellion!”

For nearly a decade, the professors and governing board of the university
had labored to keep the students in check. Yet the mayhem continued
unabated. After a decade of trying, the school’s leaders still had not hit
on the right formula to tame the wild teenagers in their midst. ...

12. “His Only Motive Was to Have a Little Fun”

The Board of Visitors, stung by the humiliating publicity surrounding
the 1836 riot, met in August 1837 to reiterate that any student military
company would be under faculty control. Furthermore, the board asserted,
a military company could be “abolished at the pleasure of the
Faculty” at any time. ...

13. Caning, Whipping, Murder

Wayward students did not clash only with professors. Others had to
be wary of the young hell-raisers. The students also scrapped with
hotelkeepers over dirty linen and lousy food. They argued with local
wagoners and laborers over their failure to show the proper respect to
gentlemen. ...

14. Henry St. George Tucker and His “New” Old Strategy

America was changing. Railroads, steamboats, the telegraph—all were
combining to transform the American landscape. The university was
changing too. Following the loss of three professors in 1840—Bonnycastle
to death, Davis to murder, and Blaettermann to scandal— ...

15. “Critical and Perilous Situation”

Student promises to stay sober and out of trouble once again proved
empty. The year 1843 opened with a brawl between roughneck townies
and students at a cheap, popular whorehouse located on the road between
the university and the town. ...

16. A New Kind of University

Jefferson, twenty years after his death, had finally triumphed. His vision,
the dream of his old age, had won out after a perilous birth and
infancy. As a result of his efforts to create the university, Jefferson’s already
controversial reputation had suffered a blow. ...

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